


The Dragon's Heart

by roebling



Series: BTS Fairy Tales [2]
Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Quests, dragon!yoongi, prince!jin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 20:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14362818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roebling/pseuds/roebling
Summary: Seokjin, Prince of the White Tower, has lost his family and his home. He has no hope of reclaiming his rightful throne until his geas is revealed to him in a dream: he will never be home again until he has the dragon's heart. Armed with a crystal dagger and a ruby casket and full of hope for the first time in years, he sets out on a quest to slay the foul beast and find his place in the world.





	The Dragon's Heart

**Author's Note:**

> For [YoonJin Week 2018](https://twitter.com/yoonjinweek?lang=en) Day 4 - Adventure
> 
> This is a ~kind of~ sequel to [The Bard, The Knight, and the Dragon's Riddle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13313286), which I wrote for MinJoon week. Kind of, because I majorly ret-con myself in one specific way. In spirit, though, it is definitely a sequel :) However, you don't need to read the previous story to understand this one! They are united if nothing else by a certain whimsical spirit, which I hope you enjoy :) 
> 
> Thank you to [mintea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintea/pseuds/mintea) as always for the beta <3 All remaining mistakes are mine!

Kim Seokjin, Prince of the White Tower, squares his shoulders and takes a deep breath. 

He has been months on the road, and all the long lonely leagues have led him here: to the top of a cold and craggy mountain, above the dark forest, above even the clouds. To the dragon's lair. 

Seokjin, called the Handsome, straightens his cloak. It is the blue of the evening sky and was hand-woven by his mother, the Queen. It is one of the few things of hers he has left. He checks that his dagger - cut from crystal and with a wrought gold handle - is still in its sheath. He takes the casket from his saddle bag. It was forged from star silver and dew. A red ruby the size of his fist is set in the lid, the only thing in this world capable of holding a dragon's heart without being dissolved by the poison of the great reptile’s foul blood. 

Seokjin is the last of a long and noble line. His father was betrayed and slain, and his he and his mother just barely escaped to her brother’s keep, injured in body and soul. His mother lingered until the year Seokjin turned sixteen, broken and full of sorrow. An evil man sits on his father's throne now. In the old stories, when a young man is thus wronged he becomes a hero and embarks on a quest for glory and revenge. Seokjin, though, had been too young for quests and not at all sure of what was going on. He was sad, mostly. He spent quite a few years being sad, until one night in his twentieth year he dreamed, and in the dream a geas was laid on him: he would never be home until he had the dragon's heart. 

This, the wise men said, was a sign that he was to retake his father’s throne and slay the evil knight who held it. Seokjin sought his uncle’s blessing and was given three boons: the evening sky cloak, which keeps a person warm or cool in turn, the crystal dagger, and the ruby casket. Thus armed, he’d said goodbye to his uncle and his aunt and his cousins, and set out on the road. 

Now, standing on the beast's very doorstep, Seokjin is not so sure he's up for this. Sure, he can hold his own with a broadsword and he's a decent horseman, but he's never been one of those princes that goes in for great feats of martial valor. That’s more his cousin Jungkook’s thing. Too bad this hadn’t been his geas. He straightens his cloak once more. He may not be _totally_ confident of his ability to slay the terrible dragon, but he can make sure he looks the part at least. 

Patting his horse on the flank, he scrambles up the last few yards of mountainside. The soil is all worn away. It's just scree and bones and - Seokjin swallows - a whole, rusted suit of armor, much like the one he's currently wearing. 

Great. Just great.

He passes a little tumbledown cottage. The door hangs loose from just one hinge, and the shutters bang in the wind. He climbs further, and passes a little cave with a sandy floor. There are marks on the walls, like someone has been marking the passing of the days. 

A prisoner? Someone held in the dragon's thrall? 

Whoever made those marks, there is no sign of them now, and the wind and rain and sun have worn away the marks they made. 

He climbs higher yet, and finally, at the very peak of the mountain, in a hollow in the stone, he comes up on the sleeping dragon. 

The beast is... not as big as he expected. 

He'd had too much time to think during all those long nights alone on the road, and the dragon had grown in his mind to a monstrous creature, huge and black and big enough to blot out the sky.

The creature before him is a dragon, definitely, but it is maybe fifteen feet long and sinuous like a snake, with most of its length in its tail. Its head is long and pointed, like a lizard, but a fuzzy fringe runs up behind its eyes and down its back. Rather than black and leathery, it has pale blue scales that shine with a rainbow iridescence. Its four legs are tipped with long, wicked claws, but they do not drip with the fetid blood of its many victims. 

"Hmm," Seokjin says. 

Maybe he's got the wrong dragon. 

Just then, one gold eye pops open. 

Seokjin steps back, and stumbles on the loose stone, barely catching himself before he goes tumbling back down the mountain. 

"Careful," the dragon says sleepily. "I don't want you to break your neck before I get the chance to eat you. I like my meat fresh." 

Seokjin, breathing hard, regains his footing. He squares his shoulders one more time. (They're really nice shoulders. His best feature, even!) 

"Foul beast," he says, feeling a little bit bad. He came up with this speech on the road, when he'd still been thinking the dragon would exhale noxious fumes. "Foul beast, heed me! I am Seokjin, called the Handsome, Prince of the White Tower, and I am here for your heart!" 

He brandishes the crystal dagger. It glitters coldly in the pale light. The ruby casket, still clutched in his left hand, seems to glow with some inner light. 

The dragon looks at him with that one eye, and then slowly opens the other. He grumbles and a tiny cloud of purple smoke floats up from his nostrils and disappears into the evening air. 

"Good luck," he says. His voice is not, for a dragon, as deep as Seokjin would have expected, nor as cold, nor as dragon-y. His voice is the voice of a man. 

There is strange magic behind that, Seokjin wagers. Maybe he speaks with the voices of those he devours. 

Seokjin holds the crystal dagger higher. "This knife," he says, "is the sharpest knife in the world, beast. It can cut through steel as easily as it can cut through butter, and with it I will cut out your heart!"

"Is that so?" The dragon huffs again and another whorl of smoke escapes upward. Sparks and shimmers in the evening sky. "Come here and try it then." 

Chills run down Seokjin's spine. Is this a ruse? A ploy to lure him close enough to close those powerful jaws around his neck?

"Calm down. I'm not going to eat you," the dragon says. "Not yet. Come try with that pretty knife of yours, Prince." 

Seokjin swallows and steps forward. Be brave, he tells himself. Behave like the Prince you are! Up close the dragon smells musky and strange but not bad at all, like some mysterious spice locked away in the apothecary's cabinet. He is hot, too. Seokjin can feel the heat radiate from him, as intense as a burning hearth. With a sinuous twist of muscle, the dragon rolls so he is belly up on the stone. His bottom is paler - the translucent white of ice - but just as armored as heavily as his flanks and back. 

"Well?" the dragon asks. Both of his eyes are open now, wide and glowing. 

In the middle of the dragon's chest, a pearly rosy luminescence blooms. 

His heart. 

"There you go," the dragon says. "So you don't miss." 

Seokjin feels suddenly, terribly afraid. Why is he doing this again? It's not like he's got any grudge against dragons in general, or this dragon in particular. It's just that it's his geas, and he will never go home until he has the dragon's heart. 

He owes it, to his family and to himself, to slay this creature and fulfill his destiny. 

Gritting his teeth, he raises the blade overhead, and brings it down hard right towards the middle of the dragon's chest. 

The crystal blade is an heirloom of his family, one of the very few they has left. It was carved in time unknown, possibly by the Aos Si themselves, and it is imbued with strange magic. He has seen it cut through iron and cut through steel and cut through solid rock. 

When he brings it down to pierce the dragon's chest, though, the blade meets resistance. Seokjin, furious suddenly, pushes harder. "Cut, you fool knife!" 

The blade skitters across that pale, scaled expanse, throwing up sparks like rainbow dust. 

It flies out of Seokjin's hand and clatters on the stone. 

"Told you," the dragon says, and he laughs, deep and serpentine and terrible. 

Seokjin feels close to tears. He crouches down to retrieve his blade. "This blade is an heirloom of my family. I have seen it cut through stone. What wicked magic protects you from it?" 

The dragon's long teeth clack. "No blade can pierce my hide."

Seokjin frowns. "Dragon, I must have your heart. It is my geas." 

The dragon's long tail lashes back and forth. "You’re in luck," he says, and for just a moment Seokjin's heart lifts. "You can have my heart, Prince, when I choose to give it to you, so you might as well just settle down and make yourself comfortable. You're in for quite a wait." 

Seokjin, failing to see any alternative, waits.

The dragon isn't a bad host, as it turns out. He offers Seokjin the use of either the cave or the cottage, and after surveying the leaky roof and rotted wood of the cottage, Seokjin decides on the cave. It's not big, but it's dry and keeps him out of the wind. With the cloak, he doesn’t need to worry too much about keeping warm. He pickets his horse outside, and there are enough patches of coarse grass to keep the beast happy. After seeing him settled, the dragon regarded him with those luminous gold coin eyes. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he says, and then he slithers off into the night. 

Seokjin spends an hour looking the cave over, but he doesn’t find a single bedbug.  
Finally, very late, he takes off his armor, takes a biscuit and a piece of jerky out of his saddlebag for dinner and eats it slowly, and then wraps himself in his cloak and tries to sleep. 

He doesn't see the dragon again for three days. 

He keeps himself busy, riding down to the forest to pick some of the jewel-ripe blackberries he'd seen growing there on his ride up. He fills up his flagon with cold water from the stream. He tries to count the number of hashes on the wall of the cave: two thousand and sixteen that haven’t been worn away. 

That discarded suit of armor gives him the heebie jeebies every time he walks past. 

On the third day, though, Seokjin is bored, so he decides to go see the dragon. Maybe the creature will have come to his senses and give Seokjin his heart. 

He walks up to the dragon's little nest at the top of the mountain again. In daylight, he can see now that the beast has lined the hollow with bits of cloth and fluff and feathers. He is curled up there, now, with the tip of his tail covering the tip of his nose, but he must hear Seokjin coming because he opens his eyes. 

"I was wondering where you went," the dragon says, and then he yawns, jaw stretching wide. 

Seokjin puffs out his chest. "Have you decided to give me your heart yet, beast?" 

The dragon blinks. "No," he says. "Not yet, sorry. I mean did you really think disappearing for three days was going to convince me to give you my heart? It's the only one I've got you know." 

He has a point.

"Well," Seokjin says. "What do I need to do, then?" 

The dragon sighs. "I don't know. Entertain me. Charm me. You're a prince. Aren't you supposed to know these things?" 

Seokjin frowns. "To be perfectly honest," he says, "I'm more of a deposed prince." 

"Deposed?" The dragon mutters. "Sheesh. Not even a real prince." 

"Hey!" Seokjin protests. "I am a real prince. My family has ruled the White Tower for generations!" 

"So what happened then?" 

"That's a long story," Seokjin says. 

The dragon grins a wicked serpent's grin. His tongue - black and forked - flicks out. "Perfect," he says. "I've got all the time in the world." 

So Seokjin tells the dragon the whole story, from the beginning. He tells how the Knight of the Three Hounds showed up at the gates of the White Castle and demanded that Seokjin's father, the king, fight him in single combat, and how his father had agreed, because his geas was that he must fulfill one wish of any traveler who came to his gate. How then the Knight of the Three Hounds slew his father on the ground in front of the castle. How Seokjin's mother had secreted him away to her brother's castle, far to the south. The long years of loneliness that followed, made double, triple, a million times worse when his mother finally died of a broken heart. Finally, his dream and his geas and his journey here. 

It is a long story, and Seokjin likes to talk, so by the time he is done with the telling it is mid afternoon and the sun is dipping lazily towards the western horizon. 

"Wow," the dragon says. "You're just like one of the heroes of song." 

Seokjin perks up. "Do you really think so? Honestly I wasn't sure if I pulled it off." 

The dragon shakes his head, which looks pretty funny. "You looked pretty ferocious when you showed up here," he says. "I would have been quaking in my boots, if I wore them." 

Seokjin beams. "Well," he admits, "I did practice on the trip." 

"It paid off," the dragon says. 

Seokjin beams. "Since I made such a dashing hero, don't you think you ought to help me out and give me your heart?" 

The dragon laughs. "Nice try," he says. "But you're not getting it that easily." 

The dragon likes stories, it seems, so after that Seokjin visits every day to talk with him and tell him some of the old stories, the stories he heard in his father's hall as a child. He's not a bard or anything, but he does a decent job, he thinks, and the dragon seems to enjoy it, except when he takes issue with some plot point or another. 

"I don't understand," the dragon says peevishly. "If she was so jealous of the kids, why didn't she turn them into something ugly, like toads? Swans are beautiful. Everyone likes swans." 

Seokjin laughs, a little exasperated. "I don't know," he says. "That's just how the story goes.”

"Hmph," the dragon says. "I would have turned them into toads. Or snails. A lot easier to keep track of snails. They can’t get too far." 

He has, Seokjin thinks, a point. 

The days and nights tumble past, one after another, and slowly, slowly, the dragon and Seokjin become something like friends. 

After hearing that Seokjin likes to bake, the dragon shows up one day with a bundle clenched between his teeth. When Seokjin opens it, he finds two fat little pies, golden and glossy, and a loaf of heavenly fresh bread. 

"I know it's not the same thing as making it yourself," the dragon says, "but I thought you might miss eating, you know, real food." 

It's true the biscuits and jerky have gotten old.

Seokjin's mouth is already full of pie. He closes his eyes, savoring the sweet, gooey raspberry filling, the flakey moist crush. "This is amazing," he says. 

The dragon can't smile, but Seokjin thinks, he looks pleased. 

Seokjin looks down at the other pie, steaming temptingly. 

"Open up," he says. 

The dragon frowns, except he doesn't, because he is a dragon and a ferocious beast and he cannot frown. He opens his mouth though, and carefully, carefully, Seokjin holds out the other pie. The dragon narrows his eyes so they are just golden slits, and his black tongue flicks out and he snatches up the pie in one fierce bite. 

The dragon snaps his jaws again, almost playful. "I can see why you like this stuff," he says. 

A bit of the red sticky filling has gotten on his snout. 

"Look," Seokjin tuts. "You made a mess of yourself." He wets the end of his cloak with water from his flask and reaches forward to wipe away the mess. 

When he realizes what he's doing, he freezes, hand only inches away from the dragon's gaping maw, from his razor sharp teeth. 

"Go ahead," the dragon says lazily. "I have to look presentable, after all." 

Seokjin snorts. "Presentable for who?" 

The dragon shrugs, a sinuous ripple of scales. "Just, you know, in general." 

Seokjin rolls his eyes, but he dabs sticky stuff with his cloak. The dragon tenses, eyes narrowed, and Seokjin hesitates. He doesn't want to lose a hand, even accidentally. He wipes the last bit of pie away, and his hand accidentally grazes the dragon's muzzle. The scales here are so fine and smooth his skin almost feels like silk. 

The dragon sniffs once, and Seokjin takes a step back. 

Then, with an explosion of purple smoke and sparks, the dragon sneezes. 

"Sorry," he mumbles, snuffling. "I'm ticklish." 

Seokjin grins. "Ticklish? What kind of ferocious dragon is ticklish?" 

The dragon rolls those full moon eyes. "Who ever said anything about ferocious? That's a dirty lie. I can't help what kinds of rumors people spread about me." 

And, in spite of his initial misgiving, Seokjin thinks the dragon is right. He's not very ferocious, at all, when it comes down to it. 

Would a ferocious beast enjoy lounging belly up in the sun? As the cool spring gives way to the bright summer, Seokjin finds the dragon sprawled out like that more and more often, soaking up the bright sunshine. He'll sit there with the dragon, leaning back against the sun-baked rock and listening to the birds sing.

Sometimes, on those sunny afternoons, Seokjin can see that pink gleam in the dragon's chest and his hand wanders towards the dagger in his belt, but then the dragon will snore suddenly so loudly he wakes himself up, and Seokjin can't help but laugh at him.

Sometimes the dragon will dream, and in those dreams he must be soaring high through the blue sky, or diving deep beneath the waves, chasing the sunset, because his legs twitch and his back arches and he trembles as if straining against the burden of flight. 

When the dragon wakes up, slowly, blinking, Seokjin elbows him and says, "So, did you catch the rabbit?" 

The dragon snorts, sending a plume of purple smoke swirling up into the sky, but then he puts his head down and sulks. "I'm not a dog," he says. 

"We could call you Fluffy," Seokjin muses, enjoying the way the frills on the dragon's back stand up when he's embarrassed. 

"I'm not Fluffy," the dragon mutters. "I'd definitely be something better than Fluffy. Fang, maybe, or Spike. Something ferocious." 

Seokjin laughs and calls him Fluffy for the rest of the day. 

The summer waxes and ripens. The days are long and full. Seokjin treks back down the mountainside to catch fish and gather mushrooms and herbs. He bathes in the cold mountain stream. He gathers wildflowers and weaves them into a crown, which he makes the dragon wear. It's a lonely life, but it doesn't feel as lonely as it could. The dragon is not bad company, although he disappears sometimes for several days, flying far, far away on unknown quests that he does not speak of when he returns. 

Seokjin is always eager for his return. His horse is a fine beast, and loyal, but not much of a conversationalist.

On one of these quests, the dragon learns a joke. 

"This is a good one," he says, tail whipping back and forth excitedly. "You're really going to laugh. Just wait." 

Seokjin, who has high standards for bad jokes, waits, one eyebrow raised. 

The dragon clears his throat. "How do you make holy water?" 

Seokjin waits. 

"By boiling the hell out of it!" The dragon's mouth hangs open in a satisfied, fang-y grin. 

Seokjin snorts. "Not bad," he says. "Wait. I have a better one. Why did the crab never share?" 

The dragon stares, inscrutable. "Why?" 

"Because he's shellfish!" 

Seokjin can't help it. He laughs so hard at his own dumb joke that his face turns red and his eyes water. 

The dragon laughs too, kind of. He makes a rumbly, satisfied noise halfway between a laugh and a purr. 

"Wait, wait," Seokjin says. "I've got more. What do you get if you cross cow with a camel?" 

"What?" 

"A lumpy milkshake." Seokjin bursts out laughing again. 

"That was awful," the dragon groans. "That didn't even make sense!" 

"Yes it did!" Seokjin protests. "It was hilarious! Because cows give milk! And camels have lumps. Get it?" 

The dragon shakes his head. "No. I don’t accept it. That was terrible." 

Seokjin frowns. He might not be the most princely prince in the world, but he does tell a good joke. "Wait," he says. "I've got another one. Why does the cow-milking stool have three legs?”

The dragon waits. 

"Because the cow has the udder!" 

The dragon snorts and rolls his eyes, but he makes that warm, rumbly noise again. 

Seokjin tells just about every joke he knows, even the really terrible ones (‘What do you call a fish with no eye? Fsssshh’) and the dragon laughs and laughs, despite his best attempts at looking stern. Seokjin learned a lot of jokes on the road, in alehouses and from passing minstrels, but he’s been up here a while and hasn’t had the chance to learn more. The horse doesn’t tell jokes, nor do the sparrows, and the dragon seems to know just the one.

It's okay, though. Seokjin doesn't mind. In the back of his mind, he knows that weeks are passing into months and he is getting no closer to his fulfilling his geas. If anything he might be getting further. The dragon is funny and smart and kind and Seokjin likes spending time with him. He knows all kinds of marvelous things, too, like the true names of all the stars. 

"That's uh... Reginald," the dragon says, pointing the tip of his tail at a big, blue-white star gleaming bright just above the horizon. "Yeah. He's a good guy." 

Seokjin narrows his eyes. "Do you mean to tell me that you can _talk_ to the stars?" 

The dragon does that strange, rippling shrug thing again. "No, but I can hear them," he says. "Kinda. The bigger ones, anyway. I mean, they're pretty far away, but they also never shut up. It's gotta be pretty lonely all the way up there, all by yourself. I guess I'd probably end up talking to myself too." 

There's some plaintive note in his voice that makes Seokjin wonder how long the dragon has been up here, on this high and lonely mountain, all alone. 

He doesn't ask though.

The summer eases towards its golden end. The days grow shorter, but the evenings are more sweet, full of fireflies and warm breezes. Seokjin mentions - just off hand, meaning nothing by it - how this weather makes him think of eating watermelon with his mother as a child. She and her ladies would take him to the river that flowed past the White Tower and let him splash in the shallows. Someone would bring two or three enormous watermelons, which they would chill by floating them in the water. After Seokjin exhausted himself swimming, they would eat cold meat and enormous slices of delicious, dripping watermelon. 

"I don't even think she liked watermelon," he confesses. "It was so long ago, but I think she mostly just brought them for me. She was kind like that.”

The dragon looks thoughtful, tail lashing back and forth. 

The next day he disappears and returns with with a giant watermelon, striped light and dark green, clutched between his front claws. 

"This thing was heavy," he grumbles as he sets it carefully down on the stone outside of Jin's cave. "I think I pulled a wing." 

Seokjin rolls his eyes but thanks him. "You didn't have to do this," he says, feeling a little queasy with guilt. 

The dragon rustles his wings, folding them neatly. "It's nothing," he says. "I have a reputation to upload. Haven't carried off many sheep lately, so this melon thing will keep people on their toes." 

They eat the melon for dinner, and then have a contest to see who can spit the seeds further. Seokjin has experience on his side, but the dragon has an unfair advantage. 

"You're cheating!" Seokjin says, after the dragon's seed travels further than his for the fourth time. "You must be cheating. Your tongue is longer." 

The dragon laughs. "What does that have to do with it?" 

"I don't know," Seokjin says slowly. "But you're definitely cheating!" 

The dragon laughs and spits another seed, right at Seokjin this time. It sticks to his cheek. Seokjin scows, mock offended, and wipes it away. 

As summer turns the corner to fall, Seokjin starts to get worried. How will he manage on this barren mountain when the weather turns cold? His cloak is magic, but he isn’t sure it will keep him warm during a blizzard. Does he need to start stockpiling firewood? Is it time to ask the dragon for his heart again? 

He is pondering that question when one day he climbs up to the dragon's nest and finds it empty. He’s not worried. It’s not unusual for the dragon to set off on some errand without saying anything. He's not too worried when he returns at noon and finds it still empty. He busies himself that afternoon sharpening and oiling his sword - one day, he knows, he will need it - and mostly manages to keep the worry at bay until he returns to the nest just as the red gold sun is vanishing beneath the horizon and finds the dragon sprawled messily across the stone. 

There are three deep gashes across his pale belly, spilling dark blood. 

The dragon's golden eyes open wide. His pupils are just narrow slits. "Seokjin," he says, in a deep and raspy voice. 

Seokjin is at his side in a second, hands pressed to his heaving flank. "Who did this?" he asks. "Who could do this to you?" 

"The eagle who lives at the top of the world," the dragon gasps. Each breath seems to push more blood from his wounds. It is pooling beneath him, midnight black. "My fault. Flew too close to her nest." He tenses. His body, normally so hot, is only warm to the touch. 

There really is a lot of blood. Too much of it, Seokjin thinks. "What do you need?" he asks. "What can I do?" 

"Nothing," the dragon says. "My fault ... I'm ..." 

"What?" Seokjin asks. He feels hysteria bubbling up in his chest. "You're what?" 

"'m an idiot," the dragon says. Smoke pours from his mouth. His long body shudders. 

"Tell me what to do," Seokjin says. "What do I need to do to save you?" 

The dragon's eyes open. They are solid disks of gold, no pupil at all. 

"Fire," he gasps. "I need... warm..." 

He convulses again.

Seokjin is on his feet in a moment, half stumbling as he races back down the slope. He grabs his midnight blue cloak and a few logs and his flint and tinder. His heart is racing, and he's sweating hard. He dumps the wood on the stone near and starts to tear the cloak into strips. He doesn't hesitate, although the cloak is all he has left of his mother. He takes those strips and tries his best to bind the dragon's wounds. The blood seeps through, but he thinks maybe it does some good, because it is flowing more slowly now. 

But the dragon is cold. Perilously cold. 

Fire. Right. 

Seokjin stacks the logs and then grabs handfuls of dead dry grass and stuffs them in between. He fumbles with his flint for a moment, but finally gets a spark. The embers catch the dry grass, and slowly, slowly, the fire kindles. 

But it is not enough. 

He races back down to the cabin, tears the door from its one hanging hinge. He takes the shutters too. The wood is old and wet but it might burn. It has to burn. He has nothing else. He smashes the door into pieces and feeds them into the fire slowly. It grows. The dragon is breathing, labored and slow, but breathing. He lives yet. Seokjin can save him.

The fire blooms into a big, roaring thing, but it's still not enough. More wood. He needs more wood. He goes back to the cabin, tears off more shutters, loose boards, anything he can find. He needs to build a fire so big and bright and hot that it keeps the shadow of death far, far away. Seokjin is aching and sore and covered in soot, but he keeps going until the top of the mountain is as hot and brilliant as a summer noon. 

It's not enough, Seokjin thinks. He is on his knees, breathing hard. His whole body aches, and his eyes sting from the smoke. The heat the fire throws off is so intense that it makes his skin prickle. He feels seared raw, inside and out. 

He adds the last few scraps to the fire and then tiredly, carefully, circles so that he's on the other side of the dragon, away from the fire. Seokjin lays down at the dragon's side. The beast feels warmer now, and he breathes easier, and that sets Seokjin's heart at ease. 

It has to be enough, he thinks. It's got to be. He's got nothing else in the whole world, if he loses this. 

He doesn't mean to fall asleep, but he's spent. His hands are raw, and his body aches. He closes his eyes - just for a moment! - and rests his head on the hard stone and he falls asleep there, curled into the dragon's side. 

When Seokjin wakes up the next morning, the fire has burnt itself out, and the dragon is gone. 

In his place, there is a man - slight and fair-skinned, with hair the color of moonbeams, and three gashes on his stomach, loosely bound with blue fabric. 

Seokjin's eyes go wide. The man stirs. One eye opens just a fraction. His iris is molten gold. 

Oh. 

He makes an uneasy noise. 

"What's wrong?" Seokjin asks. "Are you...?" 

"'m fine," the dragon says. "Cold." 

He looks cold, with goosebumps on his arms and the tips of his fingers almost blue. Seokjin puts a hand to his forehead. No fever. Quite the opposite. He's unnaturally cool. 

Seokjin looks around. There's no more wood up here. He makes his decision in an instant and carefully, so carefully, scoops the dragon into his arms. 

He's surprisingly light. He makes a faint, unhappy noise but then settles closer to Seokjin's chest. Seokjin carries the dragon carefully down the side of the cliff to his cave. He lays him down on the soft pile of sheepskins that make up his bed and covers him with all of his blankets. The dragon is uneasy for a moment, but then he settles, face calming, tension easing. 

Seokjin watches for a moment, and then goes to gather firewood. 

He walks the horse down into the forest, picking up all the dry wood he can find and stacking it on his saddle. The work is easy and his mind wanders. 

The dragon, it turns out, is not as much a dragon as he seems. Seokjin should have guessed it. What kind of proper dragon likes to take naps? What kind of proper dragon knows bad jokes? 

More surprising than that, though, is the terror he'd felt last night when he'd thought the dragon had been dying. Real, true terror, like he'd felt as a child when he'd seen his father run down on the field in front of the White Tower. This time though, he'd been able to do something about it. 

It had never crossed his mind to take the dragon's heart in that moment of weakness, when he was already laid low. 

Seokjin couldn’t do it then, and he does not think he could do it now. He doesn’t think he can ever do it, if he is totally honest. 

He closes his eyes. Tears come and sting his eyes. Seokjin can't do it. He can't take the dragon's heart. He will never revenge his father's death, and he will never be the King of the White Tower.

Tears run down his face as stoops to pick up another branch, tracks running through his ash-stained face. He'll go - as soon as the dragon is well, that is - and strike out on his own in the terrible, wide world. He can’t stay here, with this reminder of his failure.

He pulls himself together by the time he gets back to the cave. The dragon is still sleeping. Seokjin starts a fire and then boils some water for tea. He takes some precious herbs from his saddlebag and steeps them in the hot water. When it is dark and fragrant he pours some into a cup. He helps the dragon sit up, just a little, and he brings the cup to his cracked lips. He takes a tiny sip, and then another, and then coughs. 

Seokjin sets the cup down, alarmed. The dragon coughs so hard his face gets red, but it passes in a few moments. He opens one golden eye. 

"You trying to kill me or something?" 

"No," Seokjin says, a little hysterical. "No!" 

"That stuff tastes gross," the dragon mumbles.

"It's good for you," Seok says. "It'll help you get better." 

The dragon frowns but he doesn't protest when Seokjin brings the cup to his lips again. 

He sleeps for the better part of a week. Seokjin keeps the fire stoked and makes tea and broth and gathers herbs in the forest. He watches the sun rise, pink as flowers, and watches it set. He watches the stars shine overhead, and picks out the constellations the dragon taught him. He steels his heart and tries to come up with a good reason for leaving. 

Perhaps he can say he's heard of another dragon, easier to slay. 

Perhaps he can say that the Knight of the Three Hounds choked on a chicken bone, and the throne in the highest room of the White Tower is empty and waiting for Seokjin to claim it. 

Perhaps he can say to hell with his geas, he's decided to follow his true calling and open a bakery. 

He hasn't decided which of these excuses to use when he comes back from a trip to the stream on the eighth day after the dragon is hurt, and sees the dragon sitting up, tousled and drowsy but very much awake. 

"Thought you'd run off on me," the dragon mumbles, looking up, blinking those strange golden eyes. 

"Just getting some more water," Seokjin says, hefting the waterskin he's holding. 

The dragon nods, frowning. He looks younger than Seokjin would have thought. 

He's kind of cute, too.

It that something you can think about a dragon? Seokjin clears his throat. "How are you feeling?" 

The dragon frowns. He stretches, arching his back like a cat. Muscles move under that pale, smooth skin. The wounds on his side are healing, more quickly than Seokjin would have thought possible. They are red and angry still, but already closed.

"Surprisingly, not awful," the dragon says. 

Seokjin smiles. "That's a relief." He sits back on his heels. 

"I guess your nasty tea really did work," the dragon says, and he smiles, brilliant and glad. 

Seokjin's heart jumps in his chest. Nervous, he starts to babble. "I got the herbs from an apothecary. She was going to let me sleep in her barn in exchange for cutting wood, but I guess she took pity on me because she let me sleep in front of her fire. I told her the story - uh, you know, the one I told you, about my father - and then she gave me these herbs as a gift. She said they had tremendous healing properties, and they'd work even better if I used them on someone special." 

The dragon's smile twists into something smaller, uncertain but amused. 

"Am I something special?" he asks sounding unsure. 

Seokjin's mouth snaps shut. He doesn't know what to say. 

The dragon stands up slowly. Dragons, it seems, have much less of a sense of modesty than other men, although in every other respect the dragon is very much a real man. 

Uh. 

The dragon glances down at himself, and then over at Seokjin, and then rolls his eyes. 

"I forgot how delicate human sensibilities are are," he says dryly, gathering up the blanket and tying it around his waist. 

Seokjin still can't manage to form any coherent thoughts. 

"My name is Yoongi, by the way," the dragon says, blanket trailing on the ground behind him as he steps to the mouth of the cave. 

"What?" Seokjin frowns, suddenly offended. "You had a name this whole time? And you just let me keep calling you dragon? I was so rude!" 

The dragon rolls his eyes. "When I'm a dragon, I'm the only dragon," he says. "It seems weird for you to call me dragon when I'm like this." 

This seems like the moment Seokjin has been waiting for. "Speaking of other dragons,” he says slowly. “It’s time for me to hit the road." 

The dragon - Yoongi - turns and looks at him, frowning. "What?" 

Seokjin stands and stretches. "Yup," he says, intensely casual. "Time venture forth and seek new adventures. This whole 'slay a dragon and become king' thing isn't for me, I decided." 

Yoongi narrows his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. "So you're just going to leave me here to die." 

Seokjin snorts. "Die? Look at you. You'll be back on your feet in no time." 

Yoongi sits abruptly, legs sticking out in front of him. "I'm probably going to get gangrene. Or tetanus. Or pass out from dehydration. Or starve." 

Seokjin laughs. "You'll be fine. Can't you just ..." He flaps his two hands, mimicking wings. 

"What?" 

"You know. Go all dragon-y again." 

Yoongi wrinkles his nose. "It's not exactly a piece of cake, you know, turning into a dragon." 

Well, that makes sense, Seokjin thinks. 

Yoongi crosses his arms over his chest. "So you're just giving up?" He makes a disgusted noise. "I thought you were made of tougher stuff than that, Prince Seokjin the Handsome." 

Seokjin feels that hot, angry tension start to build behind his eyes. "Hey. Listen. I've been trying," he says, struggling to keep calm. "I've been trying, but I can't..." He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I can't take your heart. I can't do it. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a knight or a prince or a king, but I can't... I can't kill you, okay?" Seokjin swallows, trying hard to keep the tears back. He's such an idiot. He's tried so hard to be a good prince, but he’s just _not_ -

Yoongi narrows his eyes. "Wow. I knew you were dense, but I had no idea it was this bad." 

Great. Insult on top of insult. That pain starts to evaporate in the heat of his growing anger. "I saved your life," Seokjin says. "I -" 

Yoongi, red cheeked and suddenly shy, stares at the ground. "My heart is already yours, idiot,” he mumbles. 

"What?"

Yoongi looks up at him, gold eyes luminous. Seokjin can't look away. He thinks about the days he's spent up here, talking and laughing with Yoongi, how they rich and bright and happy they’ve been.

Happy? 

Yes. Happier. Seokjin is happy here, somehow. Happier than any days since he was a child, before his father fell. 

"You're gonna make me spell it out, huh?" Yoongi says. He stands again, and presses one hand flat to his chest. A light pulses, ruby bright, and then Yoongi is holding something, something shimmering and warm. He steps forward, and reaches for Seokjin's hand, and folds it between his two hands. The warm brilliant thing sparkles even brighter, and Seokjin feels something wash over him, cool and strange and brilliant, like moonlight on snow. 

"What... What did you just do to me?" 

"Gave you my heart," Yoongi mutters.

He frowns, mulish and annoyed, and steps back. 

"So just take it, and go. Go home to your White Tower and take your throne. Don't worry about me. I'm just going to curl up here and hibernate for a few thousand years.”

Seokjin looks down at his open hand. The shimmering light is all spent, but there's a tiny pink quartz laying on his palm, no bigger than the nail of his little finger. 

The dragon's heart. 

_Yoongi's heart._

He closes his eyes. He's waited so long for this moment, and it's nothing like he thought. He thought the dragon's heart - the real, bloody muscle - would fill him with the fire and power to take down his enemies and reclaim his ancestral throne. He thought that in the moment he held that trophy of his vanquished foe, he would suddenly become the prince he was meant to be, the kind of prince he’s never quite been. 

The stone sitting in his palm is a tiny, fragile thing. Easily lost and easily destroyed, but very precious still. It makes him no more eager to go and do battle with the Knight of the Three Hounds. Honestly, the thought of more blood turns his stomach. He loves and misses his parents, but more death won’t bring them back.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily," Seokjin says slowly. 

Yoongi looks up, blinking, eyes wide. "What?" 

Seokjin takes a deep breath. He knows what he needs to do now. He waves, wiggling his fingers. "Hi, honey, I'm home." 

Yoongi stares at him wide-eyed, and then snorts. It's a strange gesture, an echo of the dragonish exhalation that would have sent sparks rising through the air. His cheeks go pink. "I've been waiting a really, really long time for you," he says, and then he exhales, a little shakily. 

Seokjin steps forward and wraps his arms around Yoongi, folding him in a tight embrace. Yoongi's cheek rests against his chest. "I'm here now," Seokjin whispers. "I’m home." 

Yoongi nods. "Took you long enough," he mutters, but then his hands find Seokjin's waist and he looks up and his golden eyes shine, and Seokjin kisses him. 

There are no sparks or flames or purple smoke. Yoongi's lips are a little chapped, and his nose is cold. But in Seokjin's heart - in the place that counts - he feels fireworks go off, brilliant pinwheels of gold and purple and blue and silver, and hears the song of the stars, distant and strange and wonderful, and feels the beating of Yoongi's heart, right next to his own, right where it’s belonged all along.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/roebling_writes)!


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